Abstract des Autors

This chapter provides a review of the principal phases in the development of the Summer Games. It opens by discussing the revival of the modem Olympics, before providing an overview of the intricate history of cities staging the Summer Games from Athens 1896 through to the most recent Games in London in 2012. We then identify six phases in the development of the relations hip between the city and the Games. The first (1896-1906) traces the way that the nascent Olympics narrowly survived negative associations with the fairground, with two sets of Games held in Athens a decade apart offering a more positive path forward that intimately involved city and stadium. The next phase (1908-1936) saw local Organizing Committees (OCOGs) devote ever-increasing resources to preparing stadia and associated facilities. By the time of the 1936 Berlin Games, the Olympics had started to gain a consensual content with ingredients broadly replicated by each succeeding festival, although remaining an event that gave the home nation scope to mould the associated spectacle according to its own needs. After the Second World War and a brief series of lower-key events framed by Austerity (1948-1956), the Olympics witnessed, and benefitted from, growing acceptance of the economic importance and general promotional significance of the event for the host cities. The years from 1960-1976 saw host cities view the Olympics as catalyst for initiating major infrastructural and related works; a period that ended with the misfortunes of Montreal 1976. After an interlude when the Games became dominated by late- Cold War ideological issues with rather less attention to regeneration (1980-1984), the success of the strategies introduced at Los Angeles 1984 and Barcelona 1992 heralded a new phase of commercialism and regeneration programmes (1988-1996). The final section deals with the four Summer Games of the twenty-first century (2000-2012). These found cities actively competing to host a festival justified in terms of sustainability and then legacy, starting with Sydney 2000's attempts to stage a 'Green Games' and ending with London 2012's clear emphasis on post-Olympic legacy. (geändert)